Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-14-2020, 03:01 PM   #61
Anders
 
Anders's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Yes, it will.

So sayeth Phil.
__________________
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius
Anders is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-19-2020, 03:03 PM   #62
Michael Thayne
 
Michael Thayne's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Just bought the PDF on Warehouse 23? Have only done a quick skim, but I like the way the centaur is built, and the "villains" chapter has some interesting examples of sympathetic villains, antiheroes, and the like.
Michael Thayne is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-19-2020, 03:32 PM   #63
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post

Just bought the PDF on Warehouse 23? Have only done a quick skim, but I like the way the centaur is built, and the "villains" chapter has some interesting examples of sympathetic villains, antiheroes, and the like.
Thanks for the comments! I've heard a whole lot about availability and distribution, but almost nothing about the contents. ;)

I'm glad you like the centaur build. I know there are competing schools of thought about how to construct centauroids, but this one struck me as being the most playable. Because centaur PCs are a thing. I definitely fudged Bulky to fit, but I think it's fair if the GM plans to be strict about logistics. Even if the GM is slack about that, a lot of the other traits this pays for aren't first-tier special abilities.

As for the villains . . . my aim was to avoid villains who are only interesting because they're super-optimized killers, and who nobody would hesitate to kill rather than make a deal with. Most of them aren't really any more murderous than the average delver (granted, that isn't saying a lot). I suppose that some could even be played as high-powered PCs.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-19-2020, 09:56 PM   #64
tbone
 
tbone's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Just got my PDF yesterday, so I've only taken in bits and pieces. For anyone sitting on the fence, I'll just note here that there's a lot of value in this. As in x magic items and y monsters and z villains, yes, but then there's everything hinted at in the easy-to-overlook "Bonus!" blurb on the back cover:
  • a bunch of PC races (both brought over from DF and new)
  • two evil professions brought from DF
  • lots of new traits (including shapeshifting, über-wealth, a handful of all-new (?) swashbuckler traits not in DF, and horns and wings and tails and other racial accouterments)
  • a new spell
  • a new "path" for martial artists
  • several animal companions
  • new mundane gear (hauling equipment, wooden and gnomish armor, and shoe options (!))
  • lots of ready-built and unique magic items on the persons of those villains

64 pages, but it feels like a lot more. (Note for future supplements: Villains, or any detailed character write-ups, seem a great way to introduce lots of new stuff to the game while simultaneously showing how the stuff actually gets used.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Thanks for the comments! I've heard a whole lot about availability and distribution, but almost nothing about the contents. ;)

I'm glad you like the centaur build. I know there are competing schools of thought about how to construct centauroids, but this one struck me as being the most playable. Because centaur PCs are a thing. I definitely fudged Bulky to fit, but I think it's fair if the GM plans to be strict about logistics. Even if the GM is slack about that, a lot of the other traits this pays for aren't first-tier special abilities.
Speaking of Bulky, it'd be interesting and helpful to hear how exactly you built and priced that. Along with, of course, how you built any other new traits not spelled out in DF. (Along those lines, the included notes on why specific magic items were moved to this book are interesting. Any further designer's notes on the book are greatly welcomed!)

A few other notes:

・The split Move scores on some of the monsters left me confused; if there's a note in the book on what it means, I'm missing it. The answer is squirreled away in the Enhanced Move write-up in Monsters. So it's not a mystery, but all the same, I think it'd be good if the "Reading Monster Stats" box in this book and in Monsters explained split Move scores. I think that's where perplexed readers are going to look for an answer.

・I don't suppose this was intentional for any reason, but all of the monsters are mundane (with one animal). No demons/faerie/undead/etc. Which, since DFRPG doesn't complement the Naturalist skill with an Unnnaturalist counterpart (something I'd kind of like to see), leaves me wondering what skill would cover knowledge of elastoids and osisizos and other things that are "mundane" and yet anything but.

・As with the entire game line so far, all the text to aid GMs and players really stands out: the scenario ideas and adventure seeds, the detailed noted on what to roll if the monster uses this attack instead of that attack, the monster and villain combat tactics – all the advice on using stuff. More than any rules simplifications, I think this is what makes DFRPG "GURPS for fantasy, but simpler".

・For those following the POD situation: Just after I got the notice of my download, I saw the notice about Amazon POD distribution. I took a peek at Amazon Japan without expecting anything, figuring the book might be US-only for a while – but no, there it is already, available for POD purchase. Which I think I'll do; as I reported earlier, I gave POD a test shot with Magic Items 2, and was pleasantly surprised that it looked (nearly) identical to the regular DFRPG books, with color and glossy pages and all that. So I expect Companion 2 will be the same.

Anyway. The book is looking like a great resource. I look forward to putting it to use at the table.
__________________
T Bone
GURPS stuff and more at the Games Diner: http://www.gamesdiner.com

Twitter: @Gamesdiner | RSS: here ⬅︎ Updated RSS link | This forum: Site updates thread (occasionally updated)

(Latest goods on site: GLAIVE Mini levels up to v2.4. Update to melee weapon design tool, with more example weapons and commentary.)

Last edited by tbone; 03-19-2020 at 09:57 PM. Reason: typos
tbone is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-20-2020, 01:23 AM   #65
Celjabba
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Everything Tbone said, especially

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone View Post
Note for future supplements: Villains, or any detailed character write-ups, seem a great way to introduce lots of new stuff to the game while simultaneously showing how the stuff actually gets used.
The book is great, but the "bonus" make it awesome, and, I think, ideally suited for people discovering DFRPG as well as old Gurpser (Gurpsist ? ).
Celjabba is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-20-2020, 05:55 AM   #66
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone View Post

Speaking of Bulky, it'd be interesting and helpful to hear how exactly you built and priced that.
"All the other stuff that makes a centaur adds up to 135 points, and I'd prefer an even 100 points," more or less. A lot of one-off racial traits in the DFRPG are not built using strict GURPS rules. I suppose that if you speak GURPS, you could roughly emulate it as:
  • ST+3 (Size, -10%) [27], not ST+3 [30], for -3 points
  • HP+8 (Size, -10%) [15], not HP+8 [16], for -1 point
  • Lifting ST 8 (Size, -10%) [22], not Lifting ST 8 [24], for -2 points
  • Striking ST 8 (Lower Body Only, -60%; Size, -10%) [12], not Striking ST 8 (Lower Body Only, -60%) [16], for -4 points
  • Gigantism [0] without the free Basic Move+1, for -5 points
  • Increased Consumption 2* [-20]
-3 + -1 + -2 + -4 + -5 + -20 = -35

* Technically, this would mean 4× consumption while a centaur has 5×, but I felt 5× was easier to work with and probably fairer in a world with magical workarounds.
That is, a 15-point rebate for the fact that the DFRPG neither offers the Size limitation nor gives a Basic Move bonus to cancel the downsides of SM +1, plus the disadvantage of having to buy and carry lots of rations (very relevant to the DFRPG). All the mean stuff the GM could do to you because you're big – charge more for armor, have bridges break, etc. – is why Size is a limitation. That is, it's built into the rebate, not a separate thing.

(And yeah, there's the dangling question of not applying Size to later ST, HP, etc. My feeling there is that someone who buys another 10 levels of ST won't much feel the effects of carrying extra rations, essentially wiping out the Increased Consumption . . . so they'll actually come out ahead.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone View Post

The split Move scores on some of the monsters left me confused; if there's a note in the book on what it means, I'm missing it. The answer is squirreled away in the Enhanced Move write-up in Monsters.
The reader is told, "Traits: Important advantages or disadvantages, including special ones from Monsters, pp. 9-14," and every monster with a split Move has Enhanced Move listed in its traits. If we're quietly packing the bonuses for Striking ST, Brawling, and various nonhuman body parts (Claws and Strikers) into attack damage, then I think it's just as fair to do something similar with Move.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone View Post

I don't suppose this was intentional for any reason, but all of the monsters are mundane (with one animal). No demons/faerie/undead/etc.
Remember that all of these monsters are outtakes from Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2. When looking at the "balance" between monster classes, take that into account. Mundane monsters were preferentially cut from Monsters 2 because The Powers That Be felt that demons, Elder Things, undead, etc. were "more monstrous" than races not much weirder than elves.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone View Post

Which, since DFRPG doesn't complement the Naturalist skill with an Unnnaturalist counterpart (something I'd kind of like to see), leaves me wondering what skill would cover knowledge of elastoids and osisizos and other things that are "mundane" and yet anything but.
Officially, "No skill is needed for mundane humanoids" (Adventurers, p. 85) and "use Influence skills to mess with mundane humanoids" (Adventurers, p. 86). If the GM really wants to introduce the complexity of "some mundane is more mundane than other mundane," they can, but that isn't part of the game as written.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone View Post

As with the entire game line so far, all the text to aid GMs and players really stands out
Thank you! That's the fun part to write. The stats are not. ;)

And thank you for the kind words in general!
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-21-2020, 12:42 AM   #67
tbone
 
tbone's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Thanks for the detailed peek inside that Bulky trait. It all seems sensible, including the workings of Increased Consumption. Good thing centaurs are accomplished hunters, or they'd have to spend all day grazing. (Which is probably the sort of crack that centaurs don't appreciate.)

(I always liked the Inconvenient Size disad that 3e had; in an ideal world, I think centaurs' forms would be built using that, plus a hefty point value for what SM does to them as attack targets, and then other details as you've added. But working from what the existing game actually offers, your build looks good to me, with a neat point cost as well.)

On split move:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
The reader is told, "Traits: Important advantages or disadvantages, including special ones from Monsters, pp. 9-14," and every monster with a split Move has Enhanced Move listed in its traits. If we're quietly packing the bonuses for Striking ST, Brawling, and various nonhuman body parts (Claws and Strikers) into attack damage, then I think it's just as fair to do something similar with Move.
No problem with quietly dropping the Enhanced Move value into the stats block; it indeed should be there. But just to clarify this (very minor) thing I'm talking about:

I'm familiar with the split Move stat from Monsters (even if it doesn't get a lot of use in that book), but when skimming Companion 2, I simply forgot what the split means. Momentary brain freeze. (I was looking at the war hog entry, and thought, "What's this, Move with and without rider? No, that's discussed separately . . .") So I thought, "Where would a newbie look for an explanation if it's not in the write-up?", and went to the "Move" entry in "Reading Monster Stats". No explanation there, in Companion 2 or in the two Monsters books.

Monsters does hold the answer, of course, but I think a newbie has to do a bit of detective work to get there: Deduce that the answer might involve a trait, note that monsters with a split Move score all have Enhanced Move, and look up that trait to find the explanation.

In short: I think the most intuitive place newbies will look for an explanation is "Reading Monster Stats". In any future monster books, following "Move is ground Move except as noted" with "A split Move score denotes the Enhanced Move trait" would be a tiny but helpful improvement, IMO.

Just a simple suggestion. Too many words to get there. : /


Re mundane monsters: No complaint here that they're all mundane (+ an animal); nothing wrong with further rounding out that class! As for identification skills: Yeah, it's a quirk of the game that, by the books, delvers and staid townspeople alike can automatically identify elastoids and other really bizarre "mundanes". But any time that feels unsatisfying, it's easy enough for the GM to wing something.

(And while I do like a hypothetical Unnaturalist skill to cover such stuff, along with the subterranean versions of skills like Survival from GURPS Underground Adventures, I haven't introduced those into a DFRPG game yet. Because as much as I like the idea of skills that better distinguish weirdo delvers from normal above-ground naturalists and survivalists, I also think that even DFRPG has enough skills as it is . . . )

Well. Back to enjoying the new book.
__________________
T Bone
GURPS stuff and more at the Games Diner: http://www.gamesdiner.com

Twitter: @Gamesdiner | RSS: here ⬅︎ Updated RSS link | This forum: Site updates thread (occasionally updated)

(Latest goods on site: GLAIVE Mini levels up to v2.4. Update to melee weapon design tool, with more example weapons and commentary.)
tbone is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-29-2020, 11:52 AM   #69
BrianEye
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Default Re: Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2

Got my print copy of this via Amazon yesterday (and Magic Items 2 arrived this morning) - delighted with the contents, and wow - full color on the PODs! :)
BrianEye is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:03 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.